From: Eliezer Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Mon Dec 02 1996 - 16:31:27 MST
>It depends on yr definition of crackpot. Dr Hal Puthoff, one of the leading
>lights in this research, is the (former?) Scientologist who did all that
>great paradigm-busting work with Uri Geller. I don't *necessarily* have a
>problem with that (I've published a book favourable to rigorous
>parapsychology, after all) but then again--
I believe it was James Randi, the world's foremost rigorous psychic
researcher, who called Puthoff and (Targ?) "the Laurel and Hardy of
psi".
Randi might object to the term "psychic researcher", but's that what he
is. He tests psychics using rigorous methods. It isn't his fault if
none of them pass. (He has an unclaimed check for $10,000 for anyone
who can demonstrate psi under controlled conditions. Almost handed it
out once, too, to someone who could distinguish between rock and
classical records by touch, but it turns out they really DO have a
different texture...) So Randi may think of himself as a skeptic, but
he's really a psychic researcher.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/singularity.html
http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/algernon.html
Disclaimer: Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I know.
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